The garden in which I am straying has so
many diversions to catch my eye, to engage my attention and to
inspire reminiscence that I find it hard to treat of its beauties
methodically. I find myself wandering up and down, hither and
thither, in so irresponsible a fashion that I marvel you have not
abandoned me as the most irrational of madmen.

Yet how could it be otherwise? All around
me I see those things that draw me from the pathway I set out to
pursue: like a heedless butterfly I flit from this sweet unto that,
glorying and revelling in the sunshine and the posies. There is
little that is selfish in a love like this, and herein we have
another reason why the passion for books is beneficial. He who loves
women must and should love some one woman above the rest, and he has
her to his keeping, which I esteem to be one kind of selfishness.

But he who truly loves books loves all
books alike, and not only this, but it grieves him that all other men
do not share with him this noble passion. Verily, this is the most
unselfish of loves!

To return now to the matter of booksellers,
I would fain impress you with the excellences of the craft, for I
know their virtues. My association with them has covered so long a
period and has been so intimate that even in a vast multitude of
people I have no difficulty in determining who are the booksellers
and who are not.

For, having to do with books, these men in
due time come to resemble their wares not only in appearance but also
in conversation. My bookseller has dwelt so long in his corner with
folios and quartos and other antique tomes that he talks in
black-letter and has the modest, engaging look of a brown old stout
binding, and to the delectation of discriminating olfactories he
exhaleth an odor of mildew and of tobacco commingled, which is more
grateful to the true bibliophile than all the perfumes of Araby.

I have studied the craft so diligently that
by merely clapping my eyes upon a bookseller I can tell you with
certainty what manner of books he sells; but you must know that the
ideal bookseller has no fads, being equally proficient in and a lover
of all spheres, departments, branches, and lines of his art. He is,
moreover, of a benignant nature, and he denies credit to none; yet,
withal, he is righteously so discriminating that he lets the poor
scholar have for a paltry sum that which the rich parvenu must pay
dearly for. He is courteous and considerate where courtesy and
consideration are most seemly.

Samuel Johnson once rolled into a London
bookseller's shop to ask for literary employment. The bookseller
scrutinized his burly frame, enormous hands, coarse face, and humble apparel.

"You would make a better porter,"
said he.

This was too much for the young
lexicographer's patience. He picked up a folio and incontinently
let fly at the bookseller's head, and then stepping over the
prostrate victim he made his exit, saying: "Lie there, thou lump
of lead!"

This bookseller was Osborne, who had a shop
at Gray's Inn Gate. To Boswell Johnson subsequently explained:
"Sir, he was impertinent to me, and I beat him."

Jacob Tonson was Dryden's bookseller;
in the earlier times a seller was also a publisher of books. Dryden
was not always on amiable terms with Tonson, presumably because
Dryden invariably was in debt to Tonson. On one occasion Dryden asked
for an advance of money, but Tonson refused upon the grounds that the
poet's overdraft already exceeded the limits of reasonableness.
Thereupon Dryden penned the following lines and sent them to Tonson
with the message that he who wrote these lines could write more:

With leering looks, bull-faced and
freckled fair

With two left legs, with
Judas-colored hair,

And frowzy pores that taint the
ambient air.

These lines wrought the desired effect:
Tonson sent the money which Dryden had asked for. When Dryden died
Tonson made overtures to Pope, but the latter soon went over to
Tonson's most formidable rival, Bernard Lintot. On one occasion
Pope happened to be writing to both publishers, and by a curious
blunder he inclosed to each the letter intended for the other. In the
letter meant for Tonson, he said that Lintot was a scoundrel, and in
the letter meant for Lintot he declared that Tonson was an old
rascal. We can fancy how little satisfaction Messrs. Lintot and
Tonson derived from the perusal of these missent epistles.

Andrew Millar was the publisher who had
practical charge of the production of Johnson's dictionary. It
seems that Johnson drew out his stipulated honorarium of eight
thousand dollars (to be more exact, L1575) before the dictionary went
to press; this is not surprising, for the work of preparation
consumed eight years, instead of three, as Johnson had calculated.
Johnson inquired of the messenger what Millar said when he received
the last batch of copy. The messenger answered: "He said
'Thank God I have done with him.' " This made Johnson
smile. "I am glad," said he, quietly, "that he thanks
God for anything."

I was not done with my discourse when a
book was brought in from Judge Methuen; the interruption was a
pleasant one. "I was too busy last evening," writes the
judge, "to bring you this volume which I picked up in a La Salle
street stall yesterday. I know your love for the scallawag Villon, so
I am sure you will fancy the lines which, evidently, the former owner
of this book has scribbled upon the fly-leaf." Fancy them?
Indeed I do; and if you dote on the "scallawag" as I dote
on him you also will declare that our anonymous poet has not wrought ill.

FRANCOIS VILLON

If I were Francois Villon and Francois
Villon I,
What would it matter to me how the time
might drag or fly?
HE would in sweaty anguish toil the days
and nights away,
And still not keep the prowling, growling,
howling wolf at bay!
But, with my valiant bottle and my frouzy brevet-bride,
And my score of loyal cut-throats standing
guard for me outside,
What worry of the morrow would provoke a
casual sigh
If I were Francois Villon and Francois
Villon I?

If I were Francois Villon and Francois
Villon I,
To yonder gloomy boulevard at midnight I
would hie;
"Stop, stranger! and deliver your
possessions, ere you feel
The mettle of my bludgeon or the temper of
my steel!"
He should give me gold and diamonds, his
snuff-box and his cane---
"Now back, my boon companions, to our
bordel with our gain!"
And, back within that brothel, how the
bottles they would fly,
If I were Francois Villon and Francois
Villon I!

If I were Francois Villon and Francois
Villon I,
We both would mock the gibbet which the law
has lifted high;
HE in his meagre, shabby home, _I_ in my
roaring den---
HE with his babes around him, _I_ with my
hunted men!
His virtue be his bulwark---my genius
should be mine!---
"Go, fetch my pen, sweet Margot, and a
jorum of your wine!

. . . . . . .

So would one vainly plod, and one win immortality---
If I were Francois Villon and Francois
Villon I!

My acquaintance with Master Villon was made
in Paris during my second visit to that fascinating capital, and for
a while I was under his spell to that extent that I would read no
book but his, and I made journeys to Rouen, Tours, Bordeaux, and
Poitiers for the purpose of familiarizing myself with the spots where
he had lived, and always under the surveillance of the police. In
fact, I became so infatuated of Villonism that at one time I
seriously thought of abandoning myself to a life of crime in order to
emulate in certain particulars at least the example of my hero.

There were, however, hindrances to this
scheme, first of which was my inability to find associates whom I
wished to attach to my cause in the capacity in which Colin de
Cayeulx and the Baron de Grigny served Master Francois. I sought the
companionship of several low-browed, ill-favored fellows whom I
believed suited to my purposes, but almost immediately I wearied of
them, for they had never looked into a book and were so profoundly
ignorant as to be unable to distinguish between a folio and a thirty-twomo.

Then again it befell that, while the Villon
fever was raging within and I was contemplating a career of vice, I
had a letter from my uncle Cephas, apprising me that Captivity Waite
(she was now Mrs. Eliphalet Parker) had named her first-born after
me! This intelligence had the effect of cooling and sobering me; I
began to realize that, with the responsibility the coming and the
christening of Captivity's first-born had imposed upon me, it
behooved me to guard with exceeding jealousy the honor of the name
which my namesake bore.

While I was thus tempest-tossed,
Fanchonette came across my pathway, and with the appearance of
Fanchonette every ambition to figure in the annals of bravado left
me. Fanchonette was the niece of my landlady; her father was a
perfumer; she lived with the old people in the Rue des Capucins. She
was of middling stature and had blue eyes and black hair. Had she not
been French, she would have been Irish, or, perhaps, a Grecian. Her
manner had an indefinable charm.

It was she who acquainted me with Beranger;
that is why I never take up that precious volume that I do not think,
sweetly and tenderly, of Fanchonette. The book is bound, as you see,
in a dainty blue, and the border toolings are delicate tracings of
white---all for a purpose, I can assure you. She used to wear a
dainty blue gown, from behind the nether hem of which the most
immaculate of petticoats peeped out.

If we were never boys, how barren and
lonely our age would be. Next to the ineffably blessed period of
youth there is no time of life pleasanter than that in which serene
old age reviews the exploits and the prodigies of boyhood. Ah, my gay
fellows, harvest your crops diligently, that your barns and granaries
be full when your arms are no longer able to wield the sickle!

Haec meminisse---to recall the old
time---to see her rise out of the dear past---to hear
Fanchonette's voice again---to feel the grace of
springtime---how gloriously sweet this is! The little quarrels,
the reconciliations, the coquetries, the jealousies, the reproaches,
the forgivenesses---all the characteristic and endearing haps of
the Maytime of life---precious indeed are these retrospections to
the hungry eyes of age!

She wed with the perfumer's
apprentice; but that was so very long ago that I can pardon, if not
forget, the indiscretion. Who knows where she is to-day? Perhaps a
granny beldame in a Parisian alley; perhaps for years asleep in Pere
la Chaise. Come forth, beloved Beranger, and sing me the old song to
make me young and strong and brave again!

Let them be served on gold---
The wealthy and the great;
Two lovers only want
A single glass and plate!
Ring ding, ring ding,
Ring ding ding---
Old wine, young lassie,
Sing, boys, sing!